#1932 carnival

[postcard-from-the-past]

1932 Carnival in Chalon-sur-Saône, Burgundy region of France

French vintage postcard

[letterboxd-loggd]

Carnival Boat (1932) Albert S. Rogell

October 13th 2024

[goryhorroor]

What are some underrated horror films? I have watched all the popular ones and need more! Thanks!

mentally prepare yourself because im ready to give a gumbo list (this has been sitting in my inbox because i had to ask all my friends and this is the list we came up with):

curse of the demon (1957) the serpent and the rainbow (1988) paranoiac (1963) the old dark house (1932) countess dracula (1971) golem (1920) haxan (1968) island of lost souls (1932) mad love (1935) mill of the stone women (1960) the walking dead (1936) the ghoul (1933) tourist trap (1979) the seventh victim (1943) ganja & hess (1973) dead of night (1945) a bay of blood (1971) let's scare jessica to death (1971) alice sweet alice (1976) the deadly spawn (1983) the brain that wouldn't die (1962) all about evil (2010) black roses (1988) the baby (1973) parents (1989) a blade in the dark (1983) blood lake (1987) solo survivor (1984) lemora: a child's tale of supernatural (1973) eyes of fire (1983) epitaph (2007) nightmare city (1980) slugs (1988) death smiles on a murderer (1973) intruder (1989) short night of glass dolls (1971) the children (2008) alone in the dark (1982) end of the line (2007) the queen of spades (1949) the housemaid (1960) tormented (1960) captain clegg (1962) the long hair of death (1964) dark age (1987) the crawling eye (1958) the kindred (1987) the gorgon (1964) wicked city (1987) baba yaga (1973) 976-evil (1988) bliss (2019) decoder (1984) amer (2009) the visitor (1979) day of the animals (1977) leptirica (1973) planet of the vampires (1965) lips of blood (1975) berberian sound studio (2012) a wounded fawn (2022) matango (1963) the mansion of madness (1973) the killing kind (1973) symptoms (1974) morgiana (1972) whispering corridors (1998) dead end (2003) infested (2023) (this just came out but im adding it) triangle (2009) the premonition (1976) you'll like my mother (1972) the mafu cage (1978) white of the eye (1987) mister designer (1987) alison's birthday (1981) the suckling (1990) graveyard shift (1987) messiah of evil (1987) out of the dark (1988) seven footprints to satan (1929) burn witch burn (1962) the damned (1962) pin (1988) horrors of malformed men (1969) mr vampire (1985) the vampire doll (1970) contracted (2013) impetigore (2019) eyeball (1975) malatestas carnival of blood (1973) the witch who came from the sea (1976) i drink your blood (1970) nothing underneath (1985) sauna (2008) seance (2000) come true (2020) the last winter (2006) night tide (1961) the brain (1988) dementia (1955) don't go to sleep (1982) otogirisou (2001) reincarnation (2005) mutant (1984) spookies (1986) shock waves (1977) bloody hell (2020) the den (2013) wer (2013) olivia (1983) enigma (1987) graverobbers (1988) manhattan baby (1982) evil in the woods (1986) death bed: the bed that eats (1977) cathy's curse (1977) creatures from the abyss (1994) the dorm that dripped blood (1982) the witching (1993) madman (1981) vampire's embrace (1991) blood beat (1983) the alien factor (1978) savage weekend (1979) blood sisters (1987) deadly love (1987) playroom (1990) die screaming marianne (1971) pledge night (1990) night train to terror (1985) the devonsville terror (1983) ghostkeeper (1981) special effects (1984) blood feast (163) the child (1977) godmonster of indian flats (1973) blood rage (1980) the unborn (1991) screamtime (1983) the outing (1987) the being (1983) silent madness (1984) lurkers (1988) forver evil (1987) squirm (1976) death screams (1982) jack-o (1995) haunts (1976) a night to dismember (1983) creaturealm: demons wake (1998) the curse (1987) daddy's deadly darling (1973) nightwing (1979) the laughing dead (1989) the severed arm (1973) the orphan (1979) not like us (1995) prime evil (1988) the monstrosity (1987) dark ride (2006) antibirth (2016) iced (1988) the soultangler (1987) twisted nightmare (1987) puffball (2007) biohazard (1985) cameron's closet (1988) beast from haunted cave (1959) the she-creature (1956)

[citizenscreen]

Ginger Rogers and William Boyd at lunch in the R.K.O. studio cafe during the making of Albert S. Rogell's CARNIVAL BOAT (1932)

[brokehorrorfan]

Tod Browning's Sideshow Shockers will be released on Blu-ray and DVD on October 17 via The Criterion Collection. The set collects three films directed by Tod Browning: Freaks, The Unknown, and The Mystic.

Freaks (also known as The Monster Story, Forbidden Love, and Nature's Mistake) is a 1932 horror film written by Willis Goldbeck and Leon Gordon. Wallace Ford, Leila Hyams, Olga Baclanova, and Roscoe Ates star.

The Unknown is a 1927 silent horror film written by Waldemar Young. Lon Chaney, Norman Kerry, Joan Crawford, and Nick De Ruiz star.

The Mystic is a 1925 silent drama film written by Browning and Young. Aileen Pringle, Conway Tearle, and Mitchell Lewis star.

Freaks has been digitally restored in 2K with uncompressed monaural sound. The Unknown has been digitally reconstructed and restored in 2K with a new score by composer Philip Carli. The Mystic has been digitally restored in 2K with a new score by composer Dean Hurley.

Raphael Geroni designed the cover art. Special features are detailed below.

Special features:

Freaks audio commentary by film scholar David J. Skal

The Unknown audio commentary by film scholar David J. Skal

The Mystic introduction by film scholar David J. Skal

Interview with author Megan Abbott about director Tod Browning and pre-Code horror (new)

Freaks archival documentary

"Spurs" - Reading of Tod Robbins' short story on which Freaks is based

Freaks prolgue, added to the film in 1947

Freaks alternate endings featurette

Freaks portrait video glalery

Essay by film critic Farran Smith Nehme

The most transgressive film produced by a major American studio in the 1930s, Tod Browning’s crowning achievement has haunted the margins of cinema for nearly one hundred years. An unforgettable cast of real-life sideshow performers portray the entertainers in a traveling circus who, shunned by mainstream society, live according to their own code—one of radical acceptance for the fellow oppressed and, as the show’s beautiful but cruel trapeze artist learns, of terrifying retribution for those who cross them. Received with revulsion by viewers upon its initial release, Freaks effectively ended Browning’s career but can now be seen for what it is: an audacious cry for understanding and a singular experience of nightmarish, almost avant-garde power.

The most celebrated and exquisitely perverse of the many collaborations between Tod Browning and his legendary leading man Lon Chaney, The Unknown features a wrenchingly physical performance from “the Man of a Thousand Faces” as the armless Spanish knife thrower Alonzo (he flings daggers with his feet) whose dastardly infatuation with his beautiful assistant (Joan Crawford)—a woman, it just so happens, who cannot bear to be touched by the hands of any man—drives him to unspeakable extremes. Sadomasochistic obsession, deception, murder, disfigurement, and a spectacular Grand Guignol climax—Browning wrings every last frisson from the lurid premise.

A fantastically atmospheric but rarely seen missing link in the development of Tod Browning’s artistry, set amid his favored milieu of shadowy sideshows and clever criminals, The Mystic provides a striking showcase for silent-era diva Aileen Pringle, who sports a series of memorably outré looks (courtesy of art-deco designer Erté) as Zara, a phony psychic in a Hungarian carnival who, under the guidance of a Svengali-like con man (Conway Tearle), crashes—and proceeds to swindle—American high society. Browning’s fascination with the weird is on full display in the eerie séance sequences, while his subversive moral ambiguity extends surprising sympathy to even the most seemingly irredeemable of antiheroes.

[haveyouseenthishorrormovie]

Stats from Movies 301-400

Top 10 Movies - Highest Number of Votes

The Blair Witch Project (1999) had the most votes with 3,139.

The 10 Most Watched Films by Percentage

Pan's Labyrinth (2006) was the most watched film with 62.85% of voters saying they had seen it.

The 10 Least Watched Films by Percentage

Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter (2012) was the least watched film with 67.15% of voters saying they hadn't seen it.

The 10 Most Known Films by Percentage

The Blair Witch Project (1999) was the best known film with only 2.07% of voters saying they'd never heard of it. A Quiet Place (2018) was in an incredibly close second with only 2.08% of voters saying they'd never heard of it.

The 10 Least Known Films by Percentage

Playdurizm (2020) was the least known film with 95.5% of voters saying they'd never heard of it.

The movies part of the statistic count and their polls below the cut.

The Entity (1982) The Lighthouse (2019) Hellbent (2004) Joy Ride (2001) No One Lives (2012) Night of the Creeps (1986) Silent Hill (2006) Society (1989) The Black Phone (2021) Lo (2009)

Pet (2016) Evil Toons (1992) The Innocents (1961) Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom (1975) Vacancy (2007) Jeepers Creepers (2001) Dawn of the Dead (2004) Land of the Dead (2005) The Menu (2022) Mandy (2018)

Anna and the Apocalypse (2017) Apostle (2018) The Changeling (1980) Don't Look in the Basement (1973) Goodnight Mommy (2014) House on Haunted Hill (1959) The Invitation (2015) Kwaidan (1964) Last Night in Soho (2021) Marrowbone (2017)

The Old Dark House (1932) The Perfection (2018) Relic (2020) Session 9 (2001) The Similars (2015) Willy's Wonderland (2021) Willard (2003) Mansion of the Doomed (1976) Bloodbath at the House of Death (1984) Cockneys vs Zombies (2012)

Dolls (1986) Holidays (2016) Benny Loves You (2019) Stitches (2012) Afflicted (2013) The Banana Splits Movie (2019) Rare Exports (2010) Hell Fest (2018) 31 (2016) The Devil's Carnival (2012)

Brain Damage (1988) All About Evil (2010) Alice Cooper: The Nightmare (1975) The Craft (1996) The Frighteners (1996) As Above, So Below (2014) 28 Weeks Later (2007) A Quiet Place (2018) A Quiet Place Part II (2020) Night of the Comet (1984)

Tremors (1990) The Sixth Sense (1999) The Others (2001) Wolf Creek (2005) Wolf Creek 2 (2013) Little Monsters (2019) The Girl with All the Gifts (2016) Green Room (2015) Abraham Lincoln vs. Zombies (2012) Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter (2012)

The VelociPastor (2018) Theater of Blood (1973) The Cursed (2021) The Rift (1990) Terror Firmer (1999) Class of Nuke 'Em High (1986) The Man Who Laughs (1928) Vampire Hunter D (1985) Dark Skies (2013) The Twilight People (1972)

Alleluia! The Devil's Carnival (2016) Playdurizm (2020) Swallowed (2022) Exploited (2022) Deadstream (2022) The Brotherhood (2001) The Borderlands (2013) Pan's Labyrinth (2006) Penda’s Fen (1974) A Field in England (2013)

In the Earth (2021) Resolution (2012) Terrifier 2 (2022) The Blair Witch Project (1999) Battle Royale (2000) Hostel (2005) Critters (1986) The Collector (2009) M3GAN (2022)

[myhauntedsalem]

The Ghosts of Bonnie and Clyde

Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow were two of American’s most famous gangsters during the Great Depression. The two met originally in 1930 in Dallas, Texas.

They both came from desperate poverty and both had an utter contempt for authority. Bonnie, 19 fell madly in love with the 21 year old Clyde.

Shortly after their first meeting Clyde was sent to jail for burglary. Bonnie managed to smuggle a gun to him and aided his escape. But Clyde was recaptured and served a 12-month sentence.

Once out he hooked up with Bonnie again in 1932, swearing never to go back to prison. Bonnie knowing Clyde would probably end up dead vowed to die with him.

The couple spent the next 21 months on the road, with others who became known as the Barrow’s Gang. They quickly moved from petty thievery into bank robberies, kidnapping and murder. It is stated that Bonnie didn’t shoot anyone but that she would reload Clyde’s guns.

Their crime spree spanned the rural parts of Texas, Oklahoma, New Mexico and Missouri. The “yellow press” at the time romanticized the pairs’ exploits–to many Depression era Americans they became a badly needed form of entertainment.

But the reality was Bonnie and Clyde carried out ruthless bank and store robbers where sometimes they kidnapped or wounded their victims.

Clyde and various gang members murdered 13 people, two of which were police officers. The pair actually didn’t live up to their glamorized image, but they did leave a blood bath in their wake.

They managed to elude the police for almost two years but as their crimes became more violent law enforcement doubled and then tripled their efforts. The police did not take kindly to cop killers.

In the end one of their own gang members betrayed them. In May of 1934 the couple were driving a back wooded road near their hideout at Bienville Parish, Louisiana when police officers from Texas and Louisiana set up a roadblock near Gibsland, Louisiana. These five officers ambushed the stolen car Bonnie and Clyde were in and within minutes the car was riddled with over 100 bullets.

Bonnie got her wish, her body was found dead slumped over Clyde. The two bodies were towed from the site still in the car.

Before this was done however, onlookers managed to snip hair and other souvenirs from the bodies. One man even tried to cut off Clyde’s ear and trigger finger but the officers managed to stop him. Since their deaths many people claim their ghosts still remain.

The most active of these hauntings is at the site in the wooded area near where they were shot and killed in Louisiana. Today a weather worn marker is placed at the spot were Bonnie and Clyde’s car rolled off the road.

Many visitors to this spot have reported strange anomalies and mists showing up in their photographs. Most state that these strange lights appeared in just one of the many photos they took.

The car itself is also considered haunted by their ghosts. For 30 years this blood splattered, bullet-ridden V8 Ford “Death Car” as it is known, was a popular attraction at carnivals, amusement parks, flea markets and state fairs. It is estimated that it made it various owners millions of dollars.

Today the car is displayed in a room along with Clyde Barrow’s bloodstained, bullet holed shirt at Whiskey Pete’s Casino in Primm, Nevada just across the border from California.

Several people who have viewed the Ford over the years state they got a creepy unnatural feeling as they stood near it. Yet again, many people who have taken photographs of this car have picked up strange anomalies in their pictures.

One hotel that Bonnie and Clyde stayed at for several nights during their crime spree was the Baker Hotel in Mineral Wells, Texas. It is stated they haunt two specific areas of the hotel, the Brazos Room and the Ballroom.

Some feel their ghosts are still present because they are reliving fond memories. Others say that it is several objects the hotel owns that keep their ghosts active. For the hotel once had Bonnie’s 38 revolver on display as well as photographs of her and Clyde. The hotel also once displayed a poem that Bonnie wrote for Clyde.

Some state that a video of a ghostly woman wearing a long old-fashioned gown walking from one pillar to the next in the hotel lobby resembles Bonnie. Unfortunately this video has been made “private” recently.

[thewarmestplacetohide]

Dread by the Decade: Murders in the Rue Morgue

👻 You can support me on Ko-Fi! ❤️

★★½

Plot: A scientist obsessed with evolution abducts young women to inject them with ape blood.

Review: A solid Lugosi and great costumes and sets struggle against the weight of a bizarre plot and flat characters.

Source Material: "Murders in the Rue Morgue" by Edgar Allan Poe Year: 1932 Genre: Psychological Horror Country: United States Language: English Runtime: 1 hour 1 minute

Director: Robert Florey Writers: Tom Reed, Dale Van Every Cinematographer: Karl Freund Editor: Milton Carruth Cast: Sidney Fox, Bela Lugosi, Leon Ames, Bert Roach, Brandon Hurst, Noble Johnson

-----

Story: 2/5 - Why one of the earliest detective stories was adapted into a mad scientist tale is beyond me. The characters are mostly flat, with all of the women being doe-eyed and infantile.

Performances: 3/5 - Lugosi stands out, especially during his intro scene.

Cinematography: 4/5 - Some really excellent framing, shadow use, and camera movement.

Editing: 2.5/5 - Occasionally confusing.

Effects: 3/5 - The gorilla suit is fairly solid, all things considered.

Sets: 4.5/5 - Great. The carnival, street, and laboratory sets are especially of note.

Costumes, Hair, & Make-Up: 4/5

Trigger Warnings:

Mild violence

Anti-Arab racism (uncritical)

Anti-indigenous racism (uncritical)

Misogynistic caricatures

[itsahotminuteinbetween]

okk so for my boys being from 1940s, anything related to music I have down but I have NO IDEA how life operated back then and since you mentioned it I haven't been the same since please talk to me all you want abt the '40s

imma be honest, most of my knowledge on the 40s is either about the war or the precursor to the war, so probably not the most helpful of info-remember to do your own research for extra information!

with that, some quick bullet points cuz I can’t sort thoughts concisely:

Okay so to get into the 40s we gotta go at least 10 years before that cuz that’s also important: the Great Depression hits in 1929-not just in America, but the rest of the world as well-the US supposedly suffers the worst (aside from Germany, which was in debt from the first world war and their crippled economy as a result of the treaty of Versailles). I’m assuming your story takes place in the US?-otherwise I’d probably have to do some digging to find you some facts. But yea, with the stock market crash in the 20’s, tons of people were placed out of jobs, banks closed, people started living out on the streets. Government started creating random corporations to give people jobs after 1932-FDR’s presidency.

Fun fact, the radio was around at this point, so if you wanna listen to tunes, there’s your ticket. TV was a thing, but it became more popular in the mid 40s because it was used to showcase propaganda-televised entertainment became a thing in the 50s.

Anyways, some laws were passed and stuff to give people jobs-not all of them would be considered important for you, I think, cuz most of them were environmental or economical-the Workers Progress Administration was a thing though, and it hired artists and actors and others for their talent, if that’s of any importance.

Corporations weren’t faring much better either, especially the entertainment industry. The 20s were their peak years, with film being introduced and festivals or carnivals brought in cities-but with the crash of the market and extreme poverty, not too many people wanted to spend money on amusement over food. So a lot of those industries lost money and laid off a lot of people before either shutting down or being extremely poor.

Nother fun fact-ovens and stoves existed at this time, similar to how they are today-just in case one of your guys needs to make their human pal some food on their possibly outdated technology. Telephones were also available to the public by the 20s, the landlines.

Games like Monopoly (kinda ironic that it was made during the Depression), Scrabble, Sorry, and the Game of Life (originally made in 1860) were popular at the time-plus actual sports. Yes, kick the can was a thing around this time, you can make that reference.

If you want literature, I'm told island adventure stories were pretty popular for kids at the time (you'd have to double check that one, though, cuz I'm not too sure)-Superman and other heroes were a thing in the late 30's early 40s-Donald Duck comic strips were early 30s. Comedies and dramas/romances were popular in both literature and theatre (Charlie Chaplin was pretty funny), though they had this trope of things magically working in their favor until sometime in the 20s (you're gonna need to check that one cuz again, this isn't really my strong suit).

The Depression really only evened out with the start of the war-the US needed to militarize and stock up on their artillery, which meant a ton of job openings in that department, and other ones related-car companies (yea cars were a thing-you'd have to check how accessible they are though, that's not really my strong suit in history-only thing I remember is Ford releasing a model in the 20s) started building tanks, film productions started making propaganda videos (donald duck was a common character in Disney's anti-nazi propaganda for some reason), toy companies sold toy soldiers and guns to kids to convince them to support the war effort. Propaganda had advanced after ww1, which meant bigger, more eye-catching headlines in the media and clever usage of poster layouts and formatting to persuade people. The US stayed neutral up until 1941, though it did provide resources for the Allies who were fighting Germany.

That's basically all I have about the 40s-again, most of it is about the war and the economy, so not sure how much that would help. Maybe FazCo went bankrupt during the Depression and prompted your carnival to shut down?-I can see it trying to start more locations in the MidWest or something (the Plex is in Utah, if I remember correctly, though I don't know how important that is to your plotline) and scrapped it after the Depression and the War? I dunno, take your story in whichever direction you'd like, it'd be interesting any way you make it! Thanks for the opportunity to ramble, by the way-I hardly ever get to talk history or philosophy on here, so it's pretty refreshing! Hope this helped, thanks for droppin by!

[dweemeister]

Murders in the Rue Morgue (1932)

For the bookworms reading this, fair warning: there have been almost no faithful film adaptations of an Edgar Allan Poe work. In the absence of any cinematic-literary faithfulness to Poe’s bibliography, there still remains a plethora of big-screen Poe adaptations that, from a cinematic standpoint, are simply mesmeric to watch. Robert Florey’s Murders in the Rue Morgue, starring Béla Lugosi one year after his career-defining role in Dracula (1931) and released by Universal, is one of the earliest such adaptations. Its atmospheric filmmaking reminiscent of the tangled geometries of German Expressionism and Lugosi’s creepy turn in a starring role may make Poe loyalists furious, but one hopes they can also see the remarkable craft of this film, too.

Though lesser known than both Dracula and Frankenstein (1931), Florey’s Murders in the Rue Morgue came about due to legacies of both those productions. Following the successful release of Dracula in February 1931, Universal considered Lugosi as their go-to star for horror films. Producer Carl Laemmle Jr. – the son of Universal’s chief executive and co-founder, Carl Laemmle – wanted Lugosi to play Frankenstein’s monster (often mistakenly called “Frankenstein”), and even had Lugosi play the monster in several minutes of test footage. That footage, now lost, is one of horror cinema’s greatest sights unseen. Sometime after that test shoot, Universal gave director James Whale a first-choice pick for his next project after the rousing critical and commercial success of Waterloo Bridge (1931). Whale chose Frankenstein, requested a screenplay rewrite, and cast the British actor Boris Karloff in the role. As consolation, Lammle Jr. gave the Hungarian American Lugosi the starring role in Murders in Rue Morgue.

In a Parisian carnival in 1845, we find ourselves in a sideshow tent. There, Dr. Mirakle (Lugosi; meer-AH-cull, not to be pronounced like “miracle”) provides a presentation that is anything but the freak show the attendees are anticipating. He unveils an ape, Erik (Charles Gemora – an actor in an ape suit; some close-up shots are of an actual ape), whom he claims he is able to understand and converse with – even though Erik is unable to speak any human language. In the audience, Mirakle spots a young lady, Camille L’Espanaye (Sidney Fox), and asks her to be his intrepid volunteer for a demonstration. The demonstration goes awry, to the ire of both Camille and her fiancé, Pierre Dupin (Leon Ames). As Camille and Pierre exit the carnival, Mirakle orders his assistant, Janos (Noble Johnson), to trail them. Thus sets in motion the film’s grisly plot.

The film also stars silent film comic actor Bert Roach as one of Camille and Pierre’s friends, Betsy Ross Clarke as Camille’s mother, character actor D’Arcy Corrigan as the morgue keeper, and Arlene Francis (best known as a regular panelist on the game show What’s My Line?) as a prostitute.

Murders in the Rue Morgue, with a screenplay by Tom Reed (1925’s The Phantom of the Opera, 1931’s Waterloo Bridge) and Dale Van Every (1937’s Captains Courageous, 1942’s The Talk of the Town), is one of the most violent pre-Code horror films from the early synchronized sound years. It was so violent, in fact, that Universal’s executives harbored trepidation throughout its entire production and demanded narrative and structural changes that ultimately harmed the film (including cutting grotesque and violent sequences, leaving behind the current 62-minute runtime). The best example of this damage comes from the film’s opening third. Unbeknownst to the carnival attendees, Mirakle has been performing horrifying experiments involving cross-species blood mixing and, through heavy implication by the filmmaking and Gemora’s performance, bestiality (hey, it’s a pre-Code movie!). Originally, Florey’s adaptation of Murders in the Rue Morgue began with Mirakle and Janos abducting Arlene Francis’ streetwalker and Mirakle’s torturing and experimentation on her. Only after that did the film transition to Mirakle’s sideshow presentation.

The reordering of these two scenes – in the final print, the sideshow opens the movie and the abduction and experimentation follows a turgid romantic scene between Camille and Pierre – makes the sideshow opening seem sillier than it should be. If the original order had been kept, Florey’s initial intention to instill dread during the sideshow only after the abduction and experimentation scene – as the audience would be well aware of what Mirakle is capable of – would have made the film’s exposition feel far less stage-bound and hokey than it does. The abduction and experimentation scene’s blood-curdling horror remains (the scene contains a boundary-pushing combination of bestial and religious allusions that some modern filmmakers might not even dare to push), but the romantic scene immediately preceding makes for a rough tonal transition. In comparison to later horror films from the Hollywood Studio System released after stricter implementation of the Hays Code in 1934, these scenes – in addition to a later investigation and the film’s finale – hold up wonderfully.

Crucially, Tom Reed and Dale Van Every’s screenplay alter genres from Edgar Allan Poe’s original short story. With the introduction of hobbyist detective C. Auguste Dupin, Poe’s The Murders in the Rue Morgue is a foundational piece of early Western detective fiction. Or, in Poe’s words, Murders in the Rue Morgue is a “ratiocination tale” – a name that was never going to catch on in any century. Poe’s Dupin, a character who later influenced Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes and Agatha Christie’s Hercule Poirot, undergoes a name change in Reed and Van Every’s adaptation, and we do not see nearly as much deduction and investigating here as in the short story. Reed and Van Every’s screenplay, which delete all but two scenes from the Poe short story, also elevate one of their own creations – Dr. Mirakle – at the expense of Dupin. In addition, it is clear early on who is responsible for the violent acts within the narrative. And, unlike the Poe’s original short story in which Dupin and the unnamed narrator read about the violence in the newspaper, the film shows these acts explicitly or the lead-up to them. Director Robert Florey’s film is decidedly a horror film, not a mystery.

Having Béla Lugosi in the cast in his first film after Dracula is a surefire way to confirm that you are making/watching a horror film. Reed and Van Every’s clunky dialogue might not do Sidney Fox and Leon Ames any favors, but it is a gift for Lugosi. Lugosi’s heavily accented English typecast him later in his career to mad scientist and vampire roles. Nevertheless, who else could stand there – with a mangled tuft of a wig, a makeup department-applied thick unibrow that appears to barely move, menacing lighting from a low angle – and tell Fox’s Camille (after receiving a gawking from Erik, the ape), “Erik is only human, mademoiselle. He has an eye for beauty,” with incredible conviction? The opening minutes of the film at the sideshow, because of the reordering of the film, are heavily expository and contain the bumpiest writing of the entire film. But Lugosi, with his signature cadence (notice how and when Lugosi uses silence and varies the speed of his phrasing – very few native English speakers naturally speak like that) and his physical acting, presents himself perfectly as the societal outsider – remarkably intelligent, but perhaps mentally unhinged. Lugosi’s performance completely outshines all others in this film. Here, in a magnificent performance, he confirms that his acting ability on display in Dracula was no fluke.

Early Universal Horror of the late silent era and early sound era owes a sizable debt to German Expressionism – a mostly silent film-era movement in German cinema in which filmmakers used distorted and geometrically unrealistic sets to suggest mental tumult and dread. Working alongside editor Milton Carruth (1932’s The Mummy,1943’s Shadow of a Doubt) and production designer Charles D. Hall (1925’s The Phantom of the Opera, 1930’s All Quiet on the Western Front), cinematographer Karl Freund (1924’s The Last Laugh, 1927’s Metropolis) found a team of filmmakers that he could work with to set an aesthetic that could do justice to Murders in the Rue Morgue’s macabre plot.

It also helped that director Robert Florey wanted to make something that looked closer to Robert Wiene’s The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1919, Germany) than Dracula. Together, Freund and Florey worked with Hall to achieve a set design that created long shadows and crooked buildings and tents more likely to appear in a nightmare than in nineteenth century Europe. The final chase scene across angular and rickety rooftops used leftover sets from The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1923). All this endows Murders in the Rue Morgue with a gruesome atmosphere, oftentimes cloaked in dust and early morning mist.

For Freund and Florey, each saw in the other a kindred spirit in their appreciation of German Expressionism. If they could not achieve just the right shadow, they would instead paint it onto the set itself (painting shadows was commonplace in German Expressionism, but never in Hollywood movies). To achieve the ideal lighting for some of the rooftop or near-rooftop scenes, they shot outdoors, in chilly autumn weather, past midnight – most black-and-white Old Hollywood films, due to technical limitations at the time, shot nighttime scenes inside soundstages. In an era where cameras usually stayed frozen in one place, Freund invented the unchained camera technique, allowing cameras to creep forward into a set rather than relying on a cut to a close-up. Though the unchained camera is not as present here as in other movies involving Freund as cinematographer, it makes the viewer feel as if they are moving alongside the crowd at the carnival, as well as imbuing the audience with a terrible anticipation for what terror lurks around the corner. Freund and Florey’s collaboration was one of like-minded men, with similar influences and goals. In what was their only film together, the two achieve an artistry with few similarities across much of American film history.

Initial reception to Murders in the Rue Morgue was cold, in large part due to the film’s shocking violence and awkward acting. Despite finishing the film under budget, Robert Florey hit the apex of his career with Murders in the Rue Morgue. The disapproval from Universal executives took its toll, and given that Florey was on a one-film contract with the studio, he never returned. The French American director would bounce around studios over the next decade – from Paramount to Warner Bros. back to Paramount to Columbia and back to Warner Bros. – mostly working on inexpensive B-pictures, occasionally making a hit such as The Beast with Five Fingers (1946). Florey spent his later career with television anthologies: Alfred Hitchcock Presents, Four Star Playhouse, and The Twilight Zone.

For Lugosi, Murders in the Rue Morgue was the true first step for the horror film typecasting that he sought to avoid. Once considered by Universal’s executives to be the successor to the late Lon Chaney (The Man of a Thousand Faces passed away in 1930), the failure of Murders in the Rue Morgue among audiences and critics gave Universal pause when it came to extending Lugosi’s original contract. But the early 1930s were Lugosi’s most productive period in films, and they contained his finest, most memorable performances.

In recent decades, the reputation of Murders in the Rue Morgue continues to gradually improve, as do many films that once caused a stir due to their content during the pre-Code years. Awkward supporting actors aside, when one has Béla Lugosi cloaked in the shadows of German Expressionism and the spirit (albeit not so much intentions of the original text) of Edgar Allan Poe, what results is a foreboding work, one worthy to carry Universal’s horror legacy.

My rating: 7/10

^ Based on my personal imdb rating. My interpretation of that ratings system can be found in the “Ratings system” page on my blog. Half-points are always rounded down.

For more of my reviews tagged “My Movie Odyssey”, check out the tag of the same name on my blog.

[princess-suzanne]

❤️ MOVIE TAGS ❤️  

A

🤍 a bear named winnie (2004) 🤍 a dangerous method (2011) 🤍 a fistful of dollars (1964) 🤍 a most violent year (2014) 🤍 a room with a view (1985) 🤍 a royal affair (2012) 🤍 a streetcar named desire (1951) 🤍 a woman is a woman (1961) 🤍 an education (2009) 🤍 agora (2009) 🤍 all about eve (1950) 🤍 amadeus (1984) 🤍 and god created woman (1956) 🤍 angel (2007) 🤍 anna karenina (1948) 🤍 armageddon time (2022) 🤍 the artist (2011) 🤍 ashes and diamonds (1958) 🤍 atonement (2007)

B

🤍 the banshees of inisherin (2022) 🤍 barefoot in the park (1967) 🤍 the beguiled (2017) 🤍 belle (2013) 🤍 the big sleep (1946) 🤍 the bikeriders (2023) 🤍 the birds (1963) 🤍 bonnie and clyde (1967) 🤍 bram stoker’s dracula (1992) 🤍 breakfast at tiffany’s (1961) 🤍 brokeback mountain (2005) 🤍 brooklyn (2015) 🤍 bugsy (1991) 🤍 butch cassidy and the sundance kid (1969)

C

🤍 cabaret (1972) 🤍 captain america: the first avenger (2011) 🤍 carnival of souls (1962) 🤍 carol (2015) 🤍 casablanca (1942) 🤍 casino (1995) 🤍 cat on a hot tin roof (1958) 🤍 chicago (2002) 🤍 cléo de 5 à 7 (1962) 🤍 cleopatra (1963) 🤍 cria cuervos (1976) 🤍 crimson peak (2015)

D

🤍 daisies (1966) 🤍 dangerous liaisons (1988) 🤍 the danish girl (2015) 🤍 dead poets society (1989) 🤍 the debt (2010) 🤍 dirty dancing (1987) 🤍 don’t bother to knock (1952) 🤍 don’t worry darling (2022) 🤍 dracula (1931) 🤍 the duchess (2008) 🤍 dunkirk (2017)

E

🤍 east of eden (1955) 🤍 the edge of love (2008) 🤍 eileen (2023) 🤍 elizabeth (1998) 🤍 elizabeth: the golden age (2007) 🤍 elvis (2022) 🤍 emma (2020) 🤍 the end of the affair (1999) 🤍 the english patient (1996) 🤍 enola holmes (2020) 🤍 the eyes of tammy faye (2021)

F

🤍 fanny and alexander (1982) 🤍 the favourite (2018) 🤍 for a few dollars more (1965) 🤍 funny girl (1968)

G

🤍 gentlemen prefer blondes (1953) 🤍 giant (1956) 🤍 gilda (1946) 🤍 the girl on a motorcycle (1968) 🤍 gladiator (2000) 🤍 the godfather (1972) 🤍 the godfather: part ii (1974) 🤍 gone with the wind (1939) 🤍 the good, the bad and the ugly (1966) 🤍 goodfellas (1990) 🤍 the graduate (1967) 🤍 the grand budapest hotel (2014) 🤍 grand hotel (1932) 🤍 grease (1978) 🤍 the great gatsby (1974) 🤍 the great gatsby (2013) 🤍 guess who’s coming to dinner (1967)

H

🤍 the help (2011) 🤍 high noon (1952) 🤍 hiroshima mon amour (1959) 🤍 how to marry a millionaire (1953) 🤍 how to steal a million (1966)

I

🤍 ida (2013) 🤍 il gattopardo (1963) 🤍 the immigrant (2013) 🤍 in secret (2013) 🤍 inglorious basterds (2009) 🤍 it happened one night (1934)

J

🤍 jane eyre (2011)

K

🤍 the king (2019) 🤍 knife in the water (1962)

L

🤍 la dolce vita (1960) 🤍 la notte (1961) 🤍 la strada (1954) 🤍 ladies in lavender (2004) 🤍 lady chatterley’s lover (2015) 🤍 lady macbeth (2016) 🤍 the lady from shanghai (1947) 🤍 the last duel (2021) 🤍 legend (2015) 🤍 les misérables (2012) 🤍 the light between oceans (2016) 🤍 little women (2019) 🤍 the lover (1922) 🤍 the love witch (2016) 🤍 l’avventura (1960) 🤍 l’eclisse (1962)

M

🤍 macbeth (2015) 🤍 malèna (2000) 🤍 man with a movie camera (1929) 🤍 marie antoinette (2006) 🤍 mary, queen of scots (2018) 🤍 the master (2012) 🤍 meshes of the afternoon (1943) 🤍 miller’s crossing (1991) 🤍 the mirror (1975) 🤍 the misfits (1961) 🤍 moulin rouge! (2001) 🤍 the mummy (1999) 🤍 my fair lady (1964)

N

🤍 ninotchka (1939) 🤍 north by northwest (1959) 🤍 the northman (2022) 🤍 nosferatu the vampyre (1979)

O

🤍 once upon a time in america (1984) 🤍 once upon a time... in hollywood (2019) 🤍 once upon a time in the west (1968) 🤍 operation finale (2018) 🤍 the other boleyn girl (2008) 🤍 outlaw king (2018)

P

🤍 the pale blue eye (2022) 🤍 persona (1966) 🤍 phantom thread (2017) 🤍 the pianist (2002) 🤍 picnic at hanging rock (1975) 🤍 pride & prejudice (2005) 🤍 the prince and the showgirl (1957) 🤍 priscilla (2023) 🤍 the promise (2016) 🤍 psycho (1960) 🤍 the public enemy (1931) 🤍 purple noon (1960)

R

🤍 raging bull (1980) 🤍 rebel without a cause (1955) 🤍 rear window (1954) 🤍 repulsion (1965) 🤍 river of no return (1954) 🤍 the roaring twenties (1939) 🤍 rocco and his brothers (1960) 🤍 roman holiday (1953) 🤍 rosemary’s baby (1968) 🤍 rush (2013)

S

🤍 scarface (1932) 🤍 scarface (1983) 🤍 sense and sensibility (1995) 🤍 the seven year itch (1955) 🤍 the seventh seal (1957) 🤍 singin’ in the rain (1952) 🤍 sissi (1955) [trilogy] 🤍 slow west (2015) 🤍 some like it hot (1959) 🤍 the sound of music (1965) 🤍 splendor in the grass (1961) 🤍 the sting (1973) 🤍 stoker (2013) 🤍 summerland (2020) 🤍 sunset boulevard (1950) 🤍 sweet bird of youth (1962) 🤍 the swimming pool (1969)

T

🤍 their finest (2016) 🤍 the third man (1949) 🤍 this property is condemned (1966) 🤍 titanic (1997) 🤍 to catch a thief (1955) 🤍 to kill a mockingbird (1962) 🤍 tokyo story (1953) 🤍 the two faces of january (2014)

V

🤍 vertigo (1958) 🤍 vita & virginia (2018)

W

🤍 walk the line (2005) 🤍 waterloo bridge (1940) 🤍 west side story (1961) 🤍 white noise (2022) 🤍 who’s afraid of virginia woolf? (1966) 🤍 the wild one (1953) 🤍 wild strawberries (1957) 🤍 woman walks ahead (2017) 🤍 the wonder (2022) 🤍 wuthering heights (1992)

Z

🤍 the zookeeper’s wife (2017)

[heavencasteel420]

Maddie - Yay, great! 👏🏼

Here are the questions! Looking forward to reading your responses… 😊

I mostly have ideas for multi-chapter fics, especially when it comes to Jancy, but I think I like writing one-shots more.

I usually do a very rough outline before starting a chapter (a list of scenes/plot points/goals) but revise it a lot as I go (like deciding to combine two scenes or insert a new one).

Usually I have a couple of vague ideas about plot points and vibes first. For example, with Drive All Night, it occured to me that the S1 Jancy scene where they practice shooting in the woods had Bonnie and Clyde vibes, and then I saw the 1932 movie Wild Boys of the Road and liked how it escalated from "teen comedy set during Depression" to "bleak chaotic Depression Era social drama with really satisfying violence." I let those ideas percolate a little and maybe ramble about them on Tumblr or to my IRL friend who's never watched Stranger Things. Then I write a first chapter to see if it has legs. If I'm having fun and feel intrigued about what's going to happen next, I continue. With one-shots, I usually have a specific idea I want to convey, so I think more about the overall arc I want and how each scene pushes towards that.

I get a lot of ideas from watching other media and deciding that I want to put characters in that kind of situation. I have a Jancy-Byler idea (pretty low on things that I'd actually write) where Jonathan, Will, and El are siblings who have powers (mind-reading, being a medium, and telekinesis, respectively) during the 1930s and work for carnivals before deciding to run a con on the town of Hawkins (particularly the Wheeler and Harrington families, about to unite through the marriage of Nancy and Steve). This came about because I love the movie The Brothers Bloom and had recently watched the remake of Nightmare Alley. Sometimes fandom discourse provides inspiration. For Tonight, Tonight, for example, I got annoyed with people not understanding why Jonathan initially thinks Joyce is losing her mind re: the lights and so decided to write an AU where his worst fears come to pass; exploring the consequences for Nancy kind of followed from that.

I've participated in a lot of writing workshops and really appreciate constructive criticism in the right context, but on a fanfic I've already posted, from someone whose tastes/goals may be very different from my own, is not that context. People are entitled to their opinions, but at that point I'm probably not going to change anything.

I don't have my work beta'd.

I have two dual POV WIPs going right now (Tonight, Tonight and my not-yet-posted Robin-and-Jonathan friendship fic) and two fics (Drive All Night and Ugly as Sin) with a single POV. It depends partly on who's the main character (Ugly as Sin is way more about Chrissy than Eddie or anyone else), who's going through the more dramatic changes (Nancy in Drive All Night), and how much information I want to convey.

I like the middle of a story, because that's when everything gets complicated. Endings are the hardest to write.

Yes, I comment, but not as much as I would like to!

“Look, I get it,” she said, blinking rapidly. “Robin’s the pretty one. But she’s also really immature and flaky, and she’s never going to go out with you.” [Spoken to Jonathan by one of Robin's friends; he knows she's a lesbian and does not in fact want to go out with her, but he's like "hey" on her behalf.]

Off the top of my head: already wise, already worn by throttlegainwell; How Do We Get to There from Here? by nyctanthes; and where the hours bend by fakelight.

I don't need a ton of feedback, but just one person saying that they like or want to see more of something makes all the difference.

Don't get too attached to your vision of how a scene/chapter should go if it's not working in the moment. Also, if I want to do something weird or risky or gross, it's probably actually a good idea.

Sometimes emotional scenes come really easy, but other times I have to sit down and outline everything the characters might be feeling so I can decide how much to reveal/describe. There's always a decision to be made how direct to be about a character's feelings; there's a time to convey it really subtly through how the character perceives their environment and their body language and all, but there's also a time to go "he felt like shit." And I do feel what the characters feel, quite often! I cried a lot writing Tonight, Tonight, let me tell you. I also draw from personal experience a lot, although it's not always super-direct.

There's so much pressure in writing smut scenes! I generally don't try to make them "sexy" so much as I try to convey what the characters are feeling (i.e., that they like looking at each other and enjoy what they're doing). How graphic I get usually depends on the character's attitude and the pacing of the story. I value sexual frankness in writing in general, though.

Three active WIPs (two posted) and twenty other ideas, roughly. My two big ideas are (a) a slice-of-life No Upside Down AU centered on Nancy, Jonathan, Mike, and Will and (b) a film noir homage with some Gone Girl stuff going on.

I leave it for a little while. Then I go back and try to figure out where I stopped getting interested, or I skip to the "good part."

I usually come up with a title towards the beginning of the writing process and then change it a million times. Mostly I get titles from song lyrics.

Looking at "additional tags" only, "Child Abuse" and "Minor Steve Harrington/Nancy Wheeler" are in the lead. Jonathan and Chrissy are both going through it usually, and I do like writing Steve and Nancy as a temporary romance.

For some reason, "Jonathan buys a used car from Lonnie" is a scenario that comes up a lot? I like writing about food, clothes, and money. I like putting in random stuff that isn't really part of the current pop culture vision of the 1980s, like holdovers from the 1970s or how much awful TV everyone was watching.

Probably! I used to write stories with my best friend when we were in middle school (mostly original stuff) and that was always really fun.

I probably wouldn’t write a crossover with a work that’s already shown up a lot in the fandom (like It, The Black Phone, or Scream).

If you cut a passage from a story, save it in a separate document because it could be useful later.

So many people insist that “cum,” not “come,” should be used as a verb for orgasming, but that’s not true unless you’re going for the sleaziest vibe possible (no judgment).

I've been happy with the response on all my fics, but Tonight, Tonight, the Highway's Bright has a special place in my heart because it's so weird and sad.

Drive All Night, due to all the murders and crimes.

My favorite part is when you get a really good but unexpected idea, either out of the blue or after mulling things over for a while. My least favorite part is getting stuck on a scene because you can't figure out how to say that a character got up from a chair or something really silly like that.

250-500 hundred words, probably.

I'm a slow writer but I edit pretty fast. I check for typos and I take out unnecessarily wordy bits.

I share bits of rough drafts but not the whole thing.

[ravingbeauties13]

Vintage Burlesque, Sally Rand's Bubble Dance, Remixed w/ New Music

Here we present the star attraction of the 1933-34 Chicago Century of Progress World's Fair. In this clip we see her doing not her famous fan dance but the sensually art deco bubble dance. We have added some special effects to the original film and added an original soundtrack by Captain Zero & the Radioactive Lovers Born Hattie Helen Gould Beck dancer Sally Rand began her career as a chorus dancer at the tender age of thirteen in Kansas City. While still a teenager Sally ran away with a carnival drifting west to Hollywood and the movies. By then Hattie had changed her name to Billy Beck and she found steady if not spectacular work, including some time working in the stock company of the great director Cecil B. Deville who gave Hattie her more famous name. Sally's movie career ended with the advent of the talkies due to her lisp. She went back to dancing which was her first love anyway. A resourceful gal looking for steady work she combined this love for dance with the average man’s desire to behold the female form and began experimenting with various forms of tease dancing. In 1932 while working at the Paramount Club in Chicago Sally developed her fan dance that would bring her fame and fortune.  She was to become the mistresses of appearing to be naked and her big splash came at Chicago's Century of Progress World's Fair held in 1933 -34. For her arrival at the gates of the fair she recreated Lady Godiva's ride that along with her ensuing performance resulted with her being arrested four times in one day. At her trial the judge threw the charges out and in his decision said. "There is no harm and certainly no injury to public morals when the human body is exposed, some people probably would want to put pants on a horse. . . . When I go to the fair, I go to see the exhibits and perhaps to enjoy a little beer.  As far as I'm concerned, all these charges are just a lot of old stuff to me.  Case dismissed for want of equity." -- Superior Judge Joseph B. David - July 19, 1933 Even after the charges were dropped powerful forces sought to keep her from performing but her popularity was so great that they couldn't stop her. Wnen the fair reopened in 1934 she   prsented the dance featured in this video the less risqué bubble dance.   Sally did more road work for a few years before returning  to southern California.  There she briefly returned to the movies before moving to San Francisco. In 1939 she presented "Sally Rand's Nude Ranch" at the Golden Gate Exposition in San Francisco.  It featured women wearing cowboy hats, gun belts and boots, and little more.  Afterwards she took over The Great American Music Hall and started her own burlesque house and continued to perform for many years.

[goryhorroor]

horror movies in other movies

the night of the living dead (1968) in sid and nancy (1986) a nightmare on elm street 2: freddy’s revenge in those who can love me can take the train (1998) the night of the living dead (1968) in the big sick (2017) horrors of the black museum (1959) in that’ll be the day (1973) carnival of souls (1962) in christine (2016) island of lost souls (1932) in paterson (2016) the night of the living dead (1968) in pet (2016) king kong (1933) in a monster calls (2016) monster in the closet (1986) in short cuts (1993) white zombie (1932) in the hand that rocks the cradle (1992)

[citizenscreen]

Ginger Rogers and William Boyd at lunch in the R.K.O. studio cafe during the making of Albert S. Rogell‘s CARNIVAL BOAT (1932).

[artdecoblog]

Olga Baclanova

Russian actress Olga Baclanova (1896-1974) achieved prominence during the silent film era and was billed as the ‘Russian Tigress’. The statuesque blonde is best known now as the trapeze artist Cleopatra in the horror classic Freaks (Tod Browning, 1932), which also features a cast of actual carnival sideshow performers.